


Down South

by Cyanide_Dreams



Category: 3:10 to Yuma (2007)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-06
Updated: 2017-06-03
Packaged: 2018-09-15 06:29:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9223175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cyanide_Dreams/pseuds/Cyanide_Dreams
Summary: Dan has survived Contention and Ben pays a visit.(now with illustration)





	1. Ghost Pain

**Author's Note:**

> 1- I don't own any of the characters.  
> 2- This will get explicit.  
> 3- English is my second language so, I apologize for any mistakes.  
> 4- Thank you so much for reading! I'm such a huge fan and the fandom has such a slow traffic I hope you like! :D

It had been a long week. Dan’s bones ached by the time he got to the barn. His bad leg had started to crumple up. Cursing under his breath, he loosened the upper straps holding the wooden boot in place; blood flew once again and the rancher proceeded to store some gear. The sun was setting down amongst shades of orange and purple strokes. Once finished, he stood still, fixed on the horizon that shone behind the stable, watching the sun disappear. 

There was no frown on his face now as a soft wind tussled his hair. Dan laid down on the hay. He was hot, tired and reeked. He stretched and tossed his right arm behind his head; left hand rubbing his left leg’s wired muscles, providing immediate relief. Around him, a handful of crickets had started humming their endless song. Good, he thought, darkness didn’t make him feel so ashamed of his loneliness and the needs it sometimes carved deep inside him. 

He had neglected his body for far too long and now that he’d been eating far better he was pulling up some weight, regaining strength and his breathing rarely hissed. He walked straighter and his bad leg only gave him trouble after too many hours in the field, but all that recently recovered health had gradually brought back something that had long been missing: his sex drive. Dan knew that sooner or later it would have to be taken care of; last week, the urge of his body had woken him to a dampness he’s lost familiarity with.

Still…However strong it was, Dan refused to find relief in jacking off. Even though he’d touched himself enough as a horny teenager, now it just seemed out of the question. What would he do with himself, Dan mused. 

Perhaps, he thought, he had just taken Alice for granted. Her warmth, her youth. Dan went back to when he had first laid eyes on her, admitting to himself that he had missed his wife even though they hadn’t been intimate for a long time. After he had lost his leg and drought brought debt, bed affairs hadn’t been doing so well. One day, he’d just stopped trying, for there was only so much rejection a man could take. Be it as it may, he still could not find it in him to blame her for leaving; she’d had her fair share of grief. She had also lost a son and each mourned the loss on their own. In the end, there wasn’t much to be said between them anyway. At least not anymore.

So, after she had helped taking care of his wounds and had nursed him back from the dead, she packed her bags. Dan gave her about half the money Butterfield’s railroad had paid him so she could have the greatest head start wherever she wanted to settle with their eldest son. The rancher himself had barely touched his part of the dough. Out of five hundred dollars, he had only spent enough to build a new barn, give needed maintenance to the house and buy a few heads. After all, water was flowing and rain clouds were had finally appeared over Bisbee last year. Everything was getting greener and cows were getting fatter. Still… something eluded him. 

After escaping such a certain death at Contention, something had started eating him up. Mark’s passing had only deepened the gaping abyss and Alice’s departure had merely distracted him from it. Dan still wondered what it could be. He pondered at the nature of such emptiness and tried hard to remember how death had planted such a seed so deep inside his heart. Oh, and how it grew. Nurtured by loneliness it had turned into ravenous vine. Perhaps, that was what true sadness felt like, a painful and paralyzing numbness that could only pass for strange indifference. As when he had lost his leg. Perhaps life had gotten him so bad he couldn’t feel it no more and he’d just gone totally numb. Would things have been any different if he’d died? 

Dan gave up a loud sigh thinking on how peaceful death would be. He would make sure his passing was as silent and uneventful as his life had been. Somewhere inside, he knew he should be grateful to be alive, but then again, he hadn’t found much to be alive for lately. Sure his son William was as good an excuse, but the boy had finally agreed to leave for his mother to beseech him a finer education. In the end, it would be better for Will to sell the land and use the money in clever ways only educated people knew of.

That left Dan with nothing but his utter lack of expectations, a stash of money too big to spend on himself -or anything else concerning the ranch- and an emotional blankness he had only started to recognize. He had once considered the possibility of going back to his good old Massachusetts, but every time he rose out with such intentions he would end up in the barn at the end of the day, unsaddling Dollette once again. He never unpacked the saddle bags though. He kept them on a corner instead, ready and at hand for whenever he felt truly untied to the land.

It had been months, but the last time he had found himself riding back he realized he had been living as if suspended in a long and uncertain period of his life, just waiting for someone to lose the rope he had so happily tied around his own neck. 

He straightened up on the hay and sat with his good leg bent as he remembered. Waiting would sure be related to the gap he felt growing inside him, he mused. Perhaps, God hadn’t forgotten about him after all. 

The rancher shook his head. It didn’t matter how long he had been waiting or how vast that apparent eternity seemed to last, nothing ever happened. Days had quietly turned into weeks and weeks had silently dragged into months. It had only been a year after Contention and it already felt like a lifetime. Maybe he had truly died back there and was still lying at that station, he thought with some relief. 

Yes, he had died and gone to purgatory and he was waiting for some absurd epiphany to enlighten him in order for him to make his peace and break free. He kept his mind busy for a while, picturing his demise, then his own funeral, a sober and irrelevant service that consoled him more than he would ever admit to himself. He still allowed the small vanity of wondering who would attend the ceremony. Alice and William he accounted for sure. Butterfield and the town’s new sheriff, maybe. However, it didn't matter that much, Dan realized, for behind them, only but a few yards back and leaning on a tree as if he had found his own way into Dan’s imaginations, stood Ben Wade looking just the same as when they had parted ways. Dan surprised himself trying to figure out how the outlaw would look like after those twelve months...

Alice had pulled up some weight. She looked healthier, lusher; even sent a picture of her and William. She looked so pretty, and his son had grown at least two inches, his face was longer now. But what about Wade? Would he still be dressed the same in the first place? What would have he been up to since he had escaped? For Dan had read it in the paper, Emmy had kept the page for him. Had he recruited a new outfit or had he ran down to Mexico and shared the warm bed of a beautiful seniorita? Would he still smile so easily? 

The rancher mused for a few minutes, thinking about how Wade crept into his mind every so often and evoked the image of the outlaw once again as well as he could. He started by that grin and went through that hat. By the time he was at The Hand of God he felt something coil deep inside his lower belly. The rancher gritted his teeth and dismissed his thoughts with a loud sigh. It was far too dangerous to go there. 

Dan scratched his beard and rose to his feet. His leg had relaxed a bit. Maybe tomorrow he would ride to town and see himself to the barber. He sure as hell could get rid of that beard if summer kept running so hot. He started to walk to the house in a lazy mood. Yes, he would ride to town and enjoy the noise and the buzz. He smiled at the thought of indulging himself and stopping at the saloon to have a drink. See whatever was news about town. Do business. Talk, not much, but to whomever that wasn’t himself. 

He didn’t bother to close the bedroom door. There wasn’t much need for privacy now. Dan sat on the bed, took off his boots and undressed, deciding he would wash himself in the morning. As soon as he touched the bed, he fell soundly asleep.


	2. Whiskey

Dan had already fallen soundly asleep when a knocking on the door gradually brought him back to consciousness. He decided to let anyone know it was too late by not making a noise, but it was persistent, and it came again and again. It wouldn’t go away, and it was too dark by now for it to be a courteous visit so, the rancher hissed under his breath while sitting on the edge of bed. There it came again.

                Evans lit a lamp and let the light speak for itself while he put on a pair of pants and strapped his wooden leg in place, not minding about the suspenders. Once done, he reached for his good old rifle resting against the headboard and used it as a lever to get on his feet. He’d never leave that Winchester behind, though he smiled at the thought of raiders knocking on the door first. However, it was still so dark he took the lamp with him too.

                When the rancher opened the door, he wouldn’t believe his eyes. He’d read about the breakout, Emmy had kept the clipping for Dan, but he’d never expected Wade to come down looking for him. However, he just stood there, staring at the outlaw. Any questions were strangled. He’d never been as good with words and, being as groggy as he was, he still wasn’t sure his mind wasn't playing tricks on him. Evans just gazed at Ben standing at his threshold with saddle bags over his right shoulder and carrying a long wooden box under his left arm.

                Dan took a deep breath and wrinkled his brow, seemingly trying to decide whether he was dreaming or hallucinating. It sure wouldn’t be the first time he questioned his own perception of things. Sometimes, when he laid in bed early in the morning, tangled between the sheets, half awake and half asleep, he could actually hear the noise the boys made while getting ready and the ramble of Alice making breakfast. Dan used to fill his lungs with the smell of eggs, toast, jerky…

_Fresh coffee…_

                And he lingered there. Alice’s steps could be heard up and down the corridor, now calling for Will, later for Mark. Dan always smiled and cherished such memories, rather grateful for them still assaulting his slumber now and then. They were moments in which he’d keep deadly quiet, breathing deeply with eyes tight shut, thinking of all the things he’d done… And couldn’t undo.

                _God_ , how easily he’d come to learn that solitude did mess with a man’s heart. It made men withdrawn and somewhat delusional. It made ideas one had never conceived spring into one’s mind. Yes, the spur of loneliness was treacherous to man, even though it offered so many certainties and so many limited responsibilities. Thus, standing on his doorstep, caught in thought and reveries in the middle of a night after a hard day’s work, Dan stood still, frozen and fixed on a road-dusted Wade.

                The outlaw frowned thoughtfully at the man standing in front of him. His beard wasn’t well kept and his hair had outgrown a decent cut. Furthermore, Ben could gamble on those pants not having been washed in a week or so, let alone the long johns he was wearing. And, after knocking for so long, shouldn’t Alice be standing behind Dan with ever questioning eyes? And kids where always noisy, no matter what age.

                There was something truly odd to that stare too, their silent meeting had Ben noticing as much. The rancher had been sleeping, that was blatantly evident, but there was something more to those green eyes, he’d seen it before at the gold mines.

                _Dan was crazed._

                He’d expected to see scornful, spiteful, surprised… Anything else. But it would seem Dan had survived Prince’s Schofields only to become a ghost of himself. However, he could hear Charlie’s words coming from deep inside his bones…

                _For a one-legged rancher, he’s one tough son of a bitch._

Wade knew Evans had a lot of fight in him and he liked that very much; he was stubbornly determined when set to something, a good father though those kids were obviously missing, and one god damn hell of a shooter. _So_ , Ben thought, _he wouldn’t bend_ that easily, but someone had to break that silence. Someone other than the lamp burning or Dan’s breathing.

                “Well, hello Dan”, he mustered as charmingly as he could while taking his hat off. “Just came by to say hallo to an old friend”, he teased with a grin.

                It took the rancher a few seconds to fully open the door and step aside.

                Wade had thought the rancher would at least put up a fight, instead of just inviting him in. And, as soon as he stepped inside, he realized there was something somber hovering in the air; it spoke of death and decay.

                However, Ben walked past Dan and laid his things on the floor by the door before taking a seat. He left the wooden box lean at his right side of the chair.

                Evans roamed around the room, picking two glasses on the process and then opened the pantry to snatch the only bottle he had at home. While walking to take a seat he realized that, since Alice and Will had left, this had to be the most domestic scene he had lived through and somewhat wanted the emotion to linger. The notion of family surrounding him somewhat made him feel more at ease with himself.

                However, this was Wade, _wasn’t it_? He wasn’t dreaming… Still, the strangeness of the picture didn’t get to him anymore. Perhaps he was just tired, too tired to care about any of those ridiculous little details any longer.

                Ben looked at the solitaire spread on the table and it reminded him of Dan’s boy shuffling cards, making him wonder where the kid could be.

                “So, Dan, how have you been? How did it go after our little contention affair?”, Wade leaned back on the chair, left arm resting on the table while Dan poured whisky shots for both.

                The rancher lifted his glass and cheered silently with Ben before the first gulp and taking a few seconds to answer, then he’d share the longest stream of words in a very long time.

                “Spent a couple of weeks back there until the doctor said I was ready to make the trip. Meanwhile, Will travelled back to Beesbee, to the ranch, but brought back bad news back to Contention. Mark,… my young one… He’d just been coughing too much. When I finally came back here”, and there Dan picked up on the card game laying on the table while sitting down, "Mark was already gone and buried, Alice was packing what few things she had. I guess she just took it as a sign to move on; it really had been too much for her, so she took off. I gave her 500 dollars and the divorce, so she could have a decent start.”

                “You and your decency”, Ben slowly shook his head before extending his glass for Dan to pour him another shot.

                Evans kept quiet and started shuffling cards after pouring two more drinks, showing where Will had gotten such skilled hands from.

                “I’m truly sorry about your boy, Dan…”, and he was, so he kept quiet for a few moments out of some strange notion of respect for the mourning, tattered man that sat in front of him; the tired shell of a man he beheld. For it seemed only Dan’s body had survived Contention, but the wounds that death, abandonment and melancholic monotony had inflicted on Evans had finally taken their toll on the man. Those dark pools, now his eyes, shone green no more.

                 “You know, Dan, some time ago, when I was younger and running one of my wildest errands, I got shot. My horse stolen. After hours of crawling back to the road, I was lucky enough to be found by one of the strangest men I’ve ever met. I offered him the fifty dollars I had on me if he agreed to take me in and hide me until I was ready to go. Still, I could only hope he wouldn’t shoot me for the money. I was young and stupid.

                  “By the time I regained consciousness, the man told me I had been out for two days or so, but my chest was stitched and healing. It was an old man I was looking at, with beady, cunning eyes that darted everywhere when he talked. The cottage was just fine, it was a small cabin near the dessert, two days horseback from the nearest town. It was a nice, forgotten piece of a place”, Ben got lost in memories for a moment.

                  “What was so particularly strange about this man, Dan, was that he liked to collect things; things that were somewhat unique among their kind. You’d see about everything lying around that place, form furs to bone carved tools. That man could ramble for hours during a drunken afternoon”.

                  Both men kept quiet for a moment, calculating the reactions of the other. However, Ben got no response from the man across the table, but another drink, so he studied each one of Dan’s movements, already starting to memorize Evans’ physical language, his personal space, and how he balanced his weight on that good leg.

                  Another drink was gently poured for him and the rancher encouraged him to go on with one single stare, but Ben took a few moments to savor the whisky.

                  “During all the restless nights I spent there, I heard the howling of a coyote. It was a lulling sound I quickly grew very fond of while recovering from that wound. However, it didn’t take long to catch the man’s attention and, after a couple of weeks, I could tell he had set his mind into catching the beast. Until one morning, still wheezing around the cabin, finally able to get on my feet, the sun rose upon that animal tied near to the porch. If you could have seen it, Dan. Its eyes were so wild they shone even by night; so alive… Such a deep green blaze.

                  “If you could get yourself close enough, you could smell the dessert on him.

                  "However, while I got better, the animal outside deteriorated. By the time I was ready to go, the lull had already been replaced by a wounded cry. Then, nothing”, Ben said as he put the case leaning on the chair right between them both, resting his left arm on it.

                  “Very good whisky, Dan, very good indeed”, Ben drank and praised as he became even more familiar with Dan’s present and silent state of mind.

                  “The day I crossed the door to leave”, Ben resumed, “the beast didn’t even rise its head, its eyes were lost and no longer shone with that wild arrogance. It was gone, blank, stareless. After weeks of fighting for its freedom, the cayote finally laid broken, exhausted. Crazed by pain and solitude.

                  “So, after paying my thanks and bidding farewell to the man, I walked up to the stake the animal was tied to and crouched next to it. It truly broke my heart, Dan”, Wade mused with that almost permanent smirk Dan now realized he’d have to get used to.

                   “I decided to cut the rope and then drew out my gun, shooting once in the air for the animal to run away, but the cayote wouldn’t move, not even cared to look”, and there Ben tapped on the box gently, as if making a point.

                   “So, I shot him in the head”.

                   Now he had the rancher’s full attention and took advantage of it to slide the wooden box toward him. Dan still kept silent, assessing the reason for that story.

                   “Brought you a little something for all the trouble, though”, Ben pressed on before Dan’s unnerving silence.

                   “A gift?”, were Dan’s first words.

                   “Yes, Dan, a gift”.

                   Time didn’t seem to matter much to Dan now, for he pondered on it for a while, stealing glances at Ben. However, a bony hand finally made a choice for both of them and silently clicked the case open.

                   The sight of the rifle took Dan’s breath away. He loved guns and this one was a brand-new Winchester with a design carved on the iron piece, and the wood was far beyond good taste. Dan could tell it had been manufactured by request and the materials had been sorted by hand. He had to refrain himself from taking it to his shoulder and looking though the aim. It was beautiful, there was no other word. Being a sharpshooter, he liked rifles the most since he was a child. And _damn_ , did he feel like a little kid before this piece, for every sorrow suddenly disappeared.

                   This rifle was as fine as the man who’d bought it for him. Evans couldn’t take his eyes off it, don’t knowing what to do. He just stared at it and his heart finally skipped a beat at the final touches, for there, just alongside the trigger, small enough to be unnoticeable if not looked for, and following voluptuous curves under a capricious ivy patterned on metal, he could read his initials and felt truly taken aback. Something had hit him deep.

                   “Please, take it, Dan”, Ben offered while reading the man’s stare when struck by the beauty of the gun and the sad frown at the detail of his first letters.

                   They were both saying a lot without talking much.

                   “In case I don’t run?”, Dan asked looking directly at Wade. There was almost a dare in that voice and, for a moment, he looked like the good old Dan again.

                   “You’re a clever man, Dan. I like that part of you”.

 

               

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1.- Soooo sorry for the slow update! I'm lacking words to thank everyone who read and commented on the first chapter! The best I can do is dedicate this one to you all, for you encouraged me to writing it!  
> 2.- I already have a draft for the third one, but I worked hard on this one and I'm pretty proud; I'd really love to read what you thought about it. Is it too OCC? These two are hard sometimes.  
> 3.- Hope to be finished with the next one in a couple of weeks!  
> 4.- It will get explicit, I promise! XD  
> 5.- I'm working on illustrations; not very ellaborated, but I do hope you like them!  
> 6.- XOXOXOXOXO


	3. Winchester

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, guys, thank you sooooo much for taking your time to read, comment and leaving kudos, you really get me going! I'm sorry I'm not posting another chapter today, but I did finish the first illustration I was working on for this story and I really hope you like it! 
> 
> It's Dan's new rifle and how I picture it looked inside the box once he opened the case. I was inspired by an original taken from a rather unique 1894 Winchester; the metal pieces were designed by Tiffany's and made in silver. Only the best for Dan, right? Hehehe!

                   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

   “In case I don’t run?”, Dan asked looking directly at Wade. There was almost a dare in that voice and, for a moment, he looked like the good old Dan again.                   

      “You’re a clever man, Dan. I like that part of you”.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really hope you like, guys, I'm almost done with the third chapter and I'm already working on another couple of drawings! Comments are always welcome! XOXOXO


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